


Aether Or

by CallMeHux



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Additional ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fairly Fluffy, Fix It Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8025853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeHux/pseuds/CallMeHux
Summary: Paige came to Haven for a new life.  She didn't realize she was coming to find some old ones.This takes place after the series finale and probably won't make sense unless you've seen the whole run of the TV show.





	Aether Or

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend, bfl1201, who has been my constant cheerleader as I write overlong fics, on the occasion of her birthday. I dragged into you the Haven fandom and here is a fic that, in your words, fixes all of the issues you had with the finale. This story was basically my head canon of what happened after the show ended.

For almost a year, Paige's life was like something out of a fairytale.  

Paige had picked out Haven on a whim, a little spot on the map that gave her a place to be going to instead of just running from.  Because that's what she had done when she packed James in the car and as many of their possessions as she felt they couldn't do without.  They needed a fresh start and a town named Haven, of all things, on the coast of Maine sounded just right.

When her car broke down right at the border of town, she thought maybe her bad luck had followed her.  Instead, a kind, handsome police officer immediately stopped by to help.  They had breakfast together and he found her a place to stay within hours.  The woman who owned the little house for rent had slashed the price to something well within her meager budget with a grin on her face.  

Far from the keep-to-yourselfness Paige had expected of Mainers, the people of Haven all seemed to welcome her the same way.  Dwight, a bear of a man, had lit up upon spying her by Nathan's side.  Gloria, a crusty old doctor, nearly gaped before folding her into an unexpected hug and welcoming her to town.  

The entire town hadn't batted an eye either at how quickly she and Nathan had gotten together.  Paige knew they just wanted him to settle down with a good person, but hadn't quite believed how fast they thought she was the right person for him.  

She couldn't believe how fast  _ she  _ thought he was the right person for her.

She got a job in about a minute flat at the library, barely even had to apply before she was being offered the position.  Her new boss didn't even have a problem with her taking James to work with her!

Everywhere she went, people were happy to see her and within a week, Haven felt like the home she'd never really had.

About three months into her stay, she was at Nathan's, looking for her keys so she could run to the store when she came across a hand-drawn picture of herself, shoved under a  pile of paperwork on the table.  Well, her except with blonde hair.  She held it up to show him when he walked into the room, holding James.

"I didn't know you could draw!"

"Uh, I, uh, can't," Nathan replied, in that deep voice of his.  Three months of hearing his voice everyday and she still wasn't over it, the feeling she'd get when she heard him speaking, like being wrapped in a warm, comforting blanket on a chilly evening.

It was sexy as hell too.

"Okay, I'll bite.  Who did this?" she wondered, smiling down at the drawing.  

"Vickie did," Nathan admitted as he put James down on the blanket where some of his toys were spread.  Those had all been purchased in the first week she'd been in town, as soon as Nathan realized how few possessions they really had.  When he'd shown up at her place with three enormous bags of toys, she'd insisted he keep some, in case he ever had any child visitors at his place.

He did, the next day.

"It's really good, except she got my hair wrong."  Still, she couldn't resist teasing him about this picture he'd felt the need to keep secret.  "Do you like blondes better, maybe?  Are they more your type?"

Nathan straightened and walked over to her, sliding his arms around her middle and pulling her close.  "You're my type.  You're my only type," he told her, so sincerely she'd immediately kissed him.

She moved in with him the next month.  They were spending so much time together, it didn't make sense for her to keep paying rent on her own, though she made a huge basket of muffins as a thank you to her landlady.  Within a week, she had Nathan's or rather, their place, up to snuff, with new curtains and all the paperwork organized.  She filled the fridge and the cabinets with real groceries, not just junk food, making sure that Nathan got three good meals into him a day.  They had pancakes at least once a week and she finally started writing down the recipes she thought up in a book she kept in the kitchen. 

When she had been in Haven for half a year and James' vocabulary included Dada, Mama, nana, and mil(k), Nathan's truck nearly died for the third time.  Paige picked him up at the shop, watching as he slid into the passenger seat in a single, smooth motion.  He kissed her cheek in hello and turned immediately to wave at James in his car seat, who called to him excitedly.

Paige loved how quickly Nathan and James had taken to each other.

"You know," she began as she pulled away from the parking lot.  "For what you spend every month to keep your truck running, you could get a new car."

Nathan froze for a moment, then turned back around to sit in his seat and pull on his seatbelt.  He cleared his throat, telling her gruffly and with a note of plaintiveness, "I like my truck."

She immediately had the strangest sense of deja vu when he said it, and although it was the first time she had that feeling, it wouldn't be the last.  Over the next six months, a growing sense of familiarity crept over her.  This sense that she had known the town for years and years.  Like remembering the lighthouse, which had been destroyed by a huge storm before she ever came to Haven.  She wasn't picturing it; she felt like she was  _ remembering _ it.  

Or recalling how the hospital looked before its remodel.

Or feeling nearly certain she'd  _ lived _ in the school for awhile.  

Paige began to read books about past lives in the library, and watching movies about reincarnation at home, all to Nathan's puzzlement since she felt she couldn't explain to him about her crazy idea that she'd lived in Haven before.  But while  _ Defending Your Life _ was hilarious, she didn't feel like she was getting answers from anything she read or watched.

And the feeling just got worse as time went on, began to bleed into her life in disturbing ways.  Like when she was home alone with James and heard something out behind the house, she'd automatically reached for a gun on her hip, despite the fact that she  _ hated _ guns and always avoided even looking at Nathan's weapon.  Or when she mixed up a Manhattan at the Grey Gull when the bartender got slammed one evening and needed a hand when she never drank anything more exotic than a beer.  Or when little Timmy Englewood fell off his bike in front of Big Benjy's, she'd rushed right over, applying pressure to the gash in his forehead and keeping him conscious until the paramedics arrived.  

It was that last incident that really troubled her.  For as long as Paige could remember, she'd had a lot of trouble with the sight of blood.  But that day, her stomach hadn't fluttered and she hadn't felt even the remotest sign that she might faint.  

"Heard you made a big save today down at Benjy's," Nathan said, his voice warm with pride and affection as he walked into the kitchen where she was cooking spaghetti for dinner.  "Everyone was talking about it down at the station.  I didn't know you had first aid training like that."

"I don't," Paige replied freely, stirring the sauce absently.  "I can put a band-aid on a booboo, but that's about it."

"Not from the sound of it.  Pam went on about how you'd really helped out there."  Nathan went by James' high chair, giving the toddler's hair a tousle in hello and then planted a kiss on her cheek.  "Motherly instinct maybe.  No one's a better mother than you are."

"Hmmm." Paige wasn't sure she could articulate what had been going through her head when she saw Timmy flip over the handlebars of his bike.  Normally, she'd have winced, and maybe, afterwards, tried to keep him calm, making jokes about how he'd probably get a day off from school with this.  But instead, it was like a switch was flipped inside of her and she'd immediately, almost automatically known what to do.  She handed off James to Vickie and rushed over to Timmy's side, applying pressure to the wound on his head and checking him quickly with a careful hand for any other injuries.  Then she kept up a stream of questions, all in an attempt to keep him from closing his eyes.

She hadn't realized it, but apparently she said all of this outloud and found Nathan just staring at her when she finished.  The look on his face, of surprise and of  _ calculation _ , nearly took her breath away.

"What?" she demanded, feeling that now rarely-used steel within herself to prepare for a bad reaction.  

Her ex, Ken, James' father, had a tendency to just explode when he was surprised.  He didn't like ever being out of the loop or thinking that someone had kept a secret from him.  He'd turned controlling quick and by her seventh month of pregnancy, Paige knew he wasn't someone she wanted in their lives.  So, finding that steel in her, she'd moved out.  When Ken began to stalk her, she filed for a restraining order, and when that didn't do a lick of good, she'd just packed up and left the city.  No credit cards to track, no relatives to miss her, just took her son and left, hoping for a better life at the end of the road.

But Nathan was not Ken, for all he was also a strong man who knew how to get things done.  He just smiled at her, reached out a gentle hand to brush at her cheek.  "You've just got hidden depths," he told her.  "You saw someone in trouble and you helped, didn't hesitate.  That's…"  He took a breath.  "So very you."

Paige took his hand and pressed a kiss to the palm, relief flooding through her.  "Thank you, Nathan.  For being you."

"Never been anyone else," he promised.

His easy, accepting answer, his very  _ Nathaness _ , convinced her that maybe it was time to come clean.  So, after she served James a small dish of cut up noodles sprinkled with cheese for him to feed himself and put dinner on the table for the two of them, she began to explain.  Her speech was halting at first, but gradually sped up as she animatedly told Nathan about every skill, odd fact, place or person she recalled when she had absolutely no reason to.

After staring at her dumbstruck for a few minutes, a smile began to grow on Nathan's face, getting wider and wider, until she cut herself off in exasperation.  

"What?" she demanded.  "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No, I don't," he answered simply, reaching across the table to lay his hand on her comfortingly.  "I think I might know what's going on, actually."

"What?" she repeated, stunned almost into silence.  He  _ knew  _ what was going on?   

Nathan just nodded knowingly, abruptly standing and hurrying off.  "I'll be right back!" he called gruffly and she could hear him thundering through the house towards their room.  

As she waited, she looked over at James.  "Do think this is where he tells me I'm a witch?  Or he's a witch?  Or Haven is a witch graveyard and everyone here gets affected by it?" she asked the toddler, who just continued to push the remains of his dinner into two piles.  She'd been leaning in the magic direction for the last week or so.

"Thanks, you're a big help," she informed him, only to smile at his five-toothed grin in response.  James always made her feel better.

Just as she got up to get a washcloth to clean off James' face, Nathan clattered down the stairs and into the kitchen.  He put the locked black box he keep on a shelf in the closet on the table and Paige immediately grabbed James from the high chair protectively.

"Why did you just bring your gun box downstairs?"  She couldn't help the hysterical note in her voice.

"This isn't the gun box, which is actually a gun safe and which is still upstairs in the closet," Nathan patiently explained, even if a momentary expression of hurt flitted over his face at her distrust.  He quickly opened this box to reveal a bunch of papers, with the drawing of her as a blonde on top.

"This my box where I keep all of your history," he continued.

Over the next few hours, Paige marveled at the photographs, newspaper clippings, and reports talking about women named Audrey Parker, Lexie DeWitt, Lucy Ripley, Sarah Vernon, Veronica, and Mara, just to name a few.   While they washed James after supper and put him to bed, Nathan continued, ultimately telling her a fantastical story where a woman named Mara came from another world, hurt people and then spent 500 years atoning for those mistakes.

She learned about the Troubles, the real reason the town recently had to rebuild.

She learned about the Barn, about William, about her father and her mother.

She learned that Nathan thought James was his real son, a son he'd conceived in the 1950s with a woman he knew was just her, but at the time called herself Sarah.

She learned she was just the latest, and maybe the last, incarnation of the woman who had been Mara.

For a few minutes, Paige thought Nathan was the crazy one.

But...he seemed so sincere.  And the newspaper articles and the photographs and everything seemed so real.

She was holding the article about the Colorado Kid - James! - while they sat on the couch, Nathan having finally ended the whole, sordid tale.

"I know you might not believe me," Nathan said earnestly, his shoulder up against her own.  "But you can ask anyone in town.  Dwight, or Gloria, or Laverne-"

"Who had been the police station," she intoned, almost dazed.

"Right."  

Gently, he pried the article from her hands and then held them in his own.  "Paige, I don't think you're going crazy.  I think you're remembering.  Even Audrey remembered stuff she wasn't supposed to, like how to play a piano.  She'd never learned.  I think maybe, over time, more of all those memories will come back.  You've just never been around long enough for the other memories to surface completely."

She swallowed, suddenly very afraid.  "I'm not going to be me anymore?"

Nathan's eyes went wide and he shook his head.  "No, I think.  You're always you.  You're always...helpful and kind, smart, warm, focused, selfless.  Sarah had a command about her.  Audrey was wry.  Lexie was sarcastic.  Maybe you had different skills, maybe some part of you was magnified, but you were always you.  That's why Mara is gone; a new person emerged from all that."

"So what am I now?" she asked, looking at him for reassurance.

"You're the most hopeful, the most happy you I've met.  Even when shitty things happen, you just pick yourself up and keep moving.  I mean, you always did that, but you do it really optimistically now."  He smiled slightly, trying to comfort her.  "I think the Barn finds people with skills and histories that fit you, not overshadow you really are.  I met the real Audrey Parker and honestly, you're better in every way."

Paige nodded shallowly, more than a little overwhelmed.  "What about the real Paige?  Oh my god, have I been using some poor woman's...I mean, me, I mean the real version of me, her Social Security number?!"  She jerked her hands away from him, horrified.

"No, no.  We, um, took care of that when you first came to Haven."

She blinked.  "How?"

Nathan gave her a sheepish look.  "We've been fudging things in Haven for over a hundred years.  We took care of it, for you and James.  I mean, your new birth certificates say you were both born right here in town, and uh."  He rubbed the back of his neck.  "James' lists me as the father."

"Nathan!"  Paige jumped to her feet, a suspicion immediately forming in her mind what with everything he'd been telling her.  "What's James' legal name then?" she demanded.

He took a breath and put his chin up, looking straight at her.  "James Garland Wuornos."

"You….you had no right!" 

"I did!  And not just because I'm his father!" Nathan retorted, also standing.  "There's a Paige out there, and she does actually have a son James and they ran from Ken and they're living in a small town in Oregon, starting a new life.  I looked them up when you came to town, because I couldn't have Ken tracking you down here. All of Haven's crap has to stay here.  We can't have people coming to investigate. I couldn't have you filing tax returns using their numbers, their names either.  They didn't deserve that!"

"Do you know how...nuts this all sounds?!" she shouted back at him, momentarily forgetting there was a sleeping child upstairs.  

"I'm telling you, besides everything I'm saying explaining everything that's going on with you, you just need to ask some other people around town about this.  They'll tell you I'm telling the truth!"  His face lit up with a revelation.  "Or give me a paternity test.  You know, one of those kits you send away.  That'll tell you I'm not making any of this up and that yeah, I have some rights about what to call my own son!  You picked out James.  I figured I get to pick the middle name."  He looked down.  "Garland's really better as a middle name anyway."

"Well, according to you, you weren't exactly around to ask about the name, were you?" Paige retorted, drawn into the argument despite herself.  But she quickly shook her head.  "How could you...change his name without telling me?" she asked, all of the anger leaving her in a rush and leaving only disappointment in its wake.

She could feel her eyes fill with tears and Nathan's head turned in sympathy.  "I didn't know how to tell you," he admitted in a low voice.  "I didn't know you'd remember.  And I figured, we'd get married one day and have to change his name anyway when I 'adopted' him and best just to do it.  I'm sorry, I am, but I don't regret it."

"Who says I'm taking your name?" Paige questioned hotly, folding her arms in front of her.

"You did.  About a month ago, when we talked about getting married."

Her face went scarlet.  "Maybe I changed my mind."

"Maybe you're being obstinate for no reason," he answered.  His lips began to curl in a smile.  "It's one of the things I love about you."

"Don't try to change the subject," she warned him, even though she was fighting a grin.  "You changed his name.  You didn't ask, you just did it."

"I did.  Because he's a Wuornos.  Because he's Garland Wuornos' grandson and he deserved to have that name."  Nathan placed a hand on her shoulder.  "I love you.  I love our son.  I just gave him the paperwork that shows who his parents were, who his grandfather is."

"That's...that's if all of this is true," Paige pointed out.  

Though, if she was being honest with herself, she did kind of believe it.  In some ways, it made more sense than reincarnation.  It was science, not magic.  A weird, unknown, who'd have thought science, but science nonetheless.

"Ask around town.  Get the DNA test," he answered.  

So she had.  Oh, the first time she went up to someone - Gloria - she felt foolish, like maybe, just maybe, Nathan had set up a practical joke.  But that wasn't in his nature and more, she didn't think Gloria would be the type of woman to forgive Nathan either for such a dumb prank.

Gloria just clapped her hands together and gave her another hug.  "You're remembering!" she crowed.  "I...thought, maybe, I hoped, but god damnit, this is wonderful!  Tell me, right now, everything you remember," she directed, waving Paige to a stool.

Paige told her everything, at first stammering as she admitted to flashes of images, of people, of hearing someone say something.  They weren't really memories, whole memories, not yet, but everyday, she seemed to just know more.  And now that she had a story to go with them, well, they made a lot more sense.

The doctor listened and nodded, and eventually pronounced, "This sounds like amnesia, a couple of different types, all rolled into one.  I think being in Haven, being around the people and places you used to know, is going to help it all come back eventually.  At least all the Audrey bits.  No telling about the other ones, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Nathan parts of those lives surface at some point."  Her face softened.  "I'll tell you, that boy is gone for you.  Loved you every one of your lives, would do anything for you.  Beyond reason even."

"I know," Paige breathed, looking down at her hands.

"No, not quite.  But you will, once you remember.  You will," Gloria promised.

Still, even with Gloria, Dwight, Laverne, Benjy, Vickie and well, everyone she asked, conforming the story, the Troubles, thinnies, time travel, other worlds, the Void, aether, it took the DNA test to truly convince her.  Not that she really disbelieved them, since what would be the point of a scam like that, but...cold, hard facts.   That's what she wanted and that's what she got.

There it was in black and white: James was very much the biological son of Nathan Wuornos.

Paige used to be afraid she might be going crazy.  Or that she was reincarnated.

Now, she was afraid of something else entirely.

She was hundreds of years old.  Because her people, the people from the other world, they lived for hundreds of years.  Maybe even millennia.

Nathan...wasn't.

James...was just a half.  Based on what everyone told her, what she remembered even, about Dave, her son was going to age like his father did.

She was going to outlive them all, remaining as she was every year while Nathan and James grew older and older and eventually….

Terrified at the possibility, she began to wake up from horrible nightmares, about burying her son, who died an old man, while she looked just the same.

And her grandkids.

And her great-grandkids.

And her great-great...

How many generations would she see come and go before she grew old even?

She would lurk about Haven for centuries, watching as her descendants were born, grew up, grew old, and died.

The Youthful Dowager of Haven, a living ghost, haunting the town.

Nathan proposed to her that spring, shyly even, as if there was a possibility that she would say no to the man who loved her through three lifetimes.  They were going to be married in the fall, because she loved that time of year and because they'd decided to honeymoon in Disney World during their Food and Wine Festival, so they could take James along while they sampled foods from around the world.  One day, when he was older, they'd take a longer trip, actually out of the country, but for now, the novelty of being together as a family had yet to wear.

But still, she worried about the far future.  

She was worrying about that future one night in June, with both her husband-to-be and son fast asleep while she sat in the armchair downstairs and twisted a lock of her hair in her hand.  She remembered quite a bit now, almost all of the Audrey-time and a bit of the Lucy-time.  She had only one memory as Sarah, which, given how often she basically reenacted it with Nathan was not surprising.

Paige thought about her parents...Charlotte and Croatoan.  She wondered how old they really were.  Charlotte, her own mother, hadn't even appeared all that much older than her.   How long has she watched her daughter return to Haven, hoping this time she would learn enough empathy to sacrifice her love and end her punishment?  She had been in no hurry, even after five centuries.

And Croatoan.  The only person who had more facility with aether than Mara or William.  How long had he existed in the Void?  How long was he prepared to wait?  When he set the Crocker curse, the aether, the Trouble collector, how long did he think it would take until the Crockers had collected enough aether to make him the god he wanted to be?

That night, Paige came up with a plan.

One she put into motion the very next morning as she was cooking breakfast.  Nathan padded into the kitchen with James in his arms, pausing by her side to let the toddler greet her with a sloppy kiss and then putting him in his seat.

"No pancakes?" Nathan wondered.

"I felt like french toast and sausages, sorry," she admitted as she dipped another piece of bread in the batter.  "Besides, it's not like you don't have pancakes frequently in this house."

"Speaking of," he replied as he prepared a small bowl of blueberry oatmeal for James.  "I think we should start looking for a new place soon."

Setting the bread onto the pan, she cocked her head after turning to look at him curiously.  "Oh?"

"Well, we'll be married soon, officially, and maybe we might want another one of these guys and we're kind of full up here," he explained in that way of his, only daring to peek at her after he was finished talking.

Ignoring the frisson of fear - had she not just been worrying about this very thing - Paige smiled.  "Just how many kids are you planning on having?" she wondered in amusement.

"I figured at least one more to start.  Then we see how much we want another?" he suggested, corners of his mouth already peeking up.

"Mmm.  And this came up now for a reason?" she prompted, turning back to the stove to flip over the piece of toast.

She could hear Nathan pulling a chair closer so he could sit by James as the boy tried to feed himself breakfast.  "The McMurty place is going on the market."

Paige whirled before she could stop herself.  "Really?"  She loved the McMurty home, with its wide porches, view of the cape, and beautiful gingerbread styling, had loved it since she could remember.  Which, according to her memory, was in 1901.

He grinned at her.  "Yep.  Steven McMurty's going to sell and move to Portland to be with his daughter and her family.  They're not interested in an old Victorian in a sleepy little town on the coast."

"And you just happen to know this, why?"

"He might have given me a heads up," Nathan admitted, reaching for a napkin to wipe some of James' oatmeal off his face before it hardened.

They discussed the possibilities over breakfast, with Paige folding her french toast around the sausage links before dipping them in the syrup to eat.  Nathan gave some small pieces to James, who happily ate the sugary treat, though he proudly noted that,"The kid eats pancakes better."

"He is your son," she acknowledged, getting a smirk in reply.

In the end, they decided to see how much Steven wanted for the house, hoping that he'd given them a decent price.  Even with two incomes, they were both public servants, so they weren't exactly rolling in money.  

Their breakfast discussion also solidified her resolve to go forward with her plan.  So as Nathan washed and dried the dishes and she sat with James as he played with his toy cars, she mentioned, "I was thinking too, actually.  About maybe seeing if James would be okay sleeping at someone else's overnight.  We're not planning to leave for Disney until the day after the wedding, but it'd be nice if we didn't have to worry about the munchkin on our wedding night.  We could do a test run in the next few weeks, see if it would work."

He glanced at her thoughtfully, then nodded.  "That's not a bad idea.  Who were you thinking?  Vickie?"

"She is our go-to babysitter.  I can ask to see if she'd be amenable to it."

Vickie was, in fact, more than amenable to the plan, since it obviated her need to get them a wedding present.  Not that they had asked for gifts, but Paige knew everyone wanted to get them something.  

Gloria put it best.  "After everything you two did for this town?  Please."

So, on the first Saturday in July, Nathan dropped off a sleepy James at Vickie's place while Paige prepared a special, romantic dinner to take advantage of their free night together.  With Nathan out of the house, it was easy enough to lace his plate with a sedative, one that would ensure he fell asleep early and wouldn't wake up when she snuck out of bed.

When he started yawning and apologizing over dessert, she just smiled.  "A night where we don't have to worry about getting our son to bed or him waking in the middle of the night or waking us up early in the morning?  I think a long night of interrupted sleep sounds great."

Once Nathan was sound asleep not more than an hour later, Paige got dressed and scribbled a note to leave on the kitchen table in the off chance he did wake up before she got back.    Then she took Nathan's police flashlight, put a pocket knife in her bag, retrieved a shovel from the shed and drove to the cemetery.

Because there was one thing that could change her lifespan - aether.

And there was one place she thought that she could still get some.

Duke had died, had let Nathan kill him, rather than give up the aether he'd collected for her father.

His body should be filled with aether, enough to change her.

What she didn't count on was how god damned long it would take to dig down to his coffin.  Light was beginning to streak across the sky, signaling the dawn, before she managed to finally crack open the mahogany casket.  

Time hadn't done Duke many favors in the ground, but in all, his corpse didn't look too terribly bad.  And the smell?  Well, Benjy's field of dead cows had smelled worse, so there was that.  

"Here goes nothing," Paige told him.  Because she had taken so long, there was absolutely no way she wasn't going to get caught so she might as well try.

Knife in hand, she leaned forward and cut the skin on the neck of the body.  After a moment, she put away the pocket knife, held out a hand over the wound and tried to concentrate.

Nothing happened.

Paige tried again, feeling something, maybe, for a moment, but when she opened her eyes, nothing had changed.

Angry, at herself for thinking up this stupid plan, at the worlds for letting her fall in love with someone and have children she would outlive, she tried once last time, nearly shrieking in frustration.

That's when the aether began to stream out of the body, collecting into a sphere almost the size of a kid's soccer ball.  

Paige stared at the aether collected in her hand, hardly daring to believe that it worked.  But at the same time, she felt the power of it, saw the endless possibilities of what she could do with it laid out before her.  

And for a dark moment, she was tempted.

So tempted.  

There were just  _ so _ many things she could do.

But she remembered Nathan.  She remembered James.  She remembered what made Croatoan give up the fight.

Love.  Real, honest love.  

There was nothing better.

And she was not Mara.

Paige did what she came to do.

And then did a little more, because she could.

Nathan found her about an hour later sitting on the edge of the grave, too tired to fill the dirt back in.  He came running up from where he'd left his truck - still running after all this time - yelling her name.

"Paige!"

She gave him a weak sort of smile as she turned, but didn't get up until he helped her to her feet and pulled her into his arms.

"How'd you find me?"

"Stan said that a patrol car saw your car at the cemetery."  He swallowed, glancing down at the grave.  "Paige - what did you do?"

"I didn't want to outlive you.  I didn't want to outlive James.  I need aether to change me so I wouldn't.  Duke still had aether in him," she explained tiredly.

Nathan stared down at her in horror.  "You gave yourself a Trouble?"

"No, no," she shook her head.  "I actually changed me, completely.  Not a Trouble.  Just a tweak, making me like you."

Before he could say anything in reply, another voice interrupted them.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Paige smiled in relief now that she knew it had worked, sagging against Nathan's chest, who'd frozen at the sound of the familiar tone of Duke Crocker.   Nathan only gaped when the dead man himself seemed to stride out of a grove of trees by the far corner of the cemetery.

"Nathan!  Audrey!  What's going on?  Last thing I remember is you trying to kill me and then I wake up in the woods.  Did you think Croatoan wouldn't find me there?" he demanded angrily.   He frowned at the pair of them, her dirt-caked jeans and Nathan's disbelieving stare.  "When did you have time to dye your hair, Audrey?  Because this is not the time to try out a new look."

"Actually," she began, pulling back from Nathan, who finally turned towards his friend and took a few steps in the man's direction.  "It's Paige now.  I like being Paige.  She's optimistic and she knows how to cook really well.  Croatoan is gone, you've been dead for a couple of years, Gloria owns the Gull but I'm pretty sure she'll give it back.  Oh, and you can meet James.  He came out of the Barn with me this time, as a baby, so you can meet him.  And come to the wedding of course."

Now it was Duke's turn to gape at her.  "Are you fucking kidding me?" he managed to ask before Nathan enveloped him in a hug.  

"Hey now, you killed me, I don't want to hug you," Duke quipped, though he didn't push away his friend.  Over the other man's shoulder, he asked, "It worked?"

"Sort of.  Long story.  Nathan I'm sure will tell you over a breakfast of waffles."

"Pancakes," Nathan corrected, finally stepping back to grin at his resurrected friend.

"I prefer waffles," Duke reminded him.   "And I'm the one who died."   His brow furrowed then and he grimaced.  "Why'd you have to bring me back, Aud-"  He paused.  "Paige.  Why?" 

"There was a lot of aether that I pulled out of you.  When I did what I needed to do, there was still a lot left.  So I used it because we can't have aether hanging around."

"But you know it would-"

"James is here.  Lizzie, Dwight's little girl?  She's back too.  And it's really them.  Yes, I knew aether could do that."  Paige came up beside Nathan, looping an arm around his side as much to steady herself as to hug him close.

"You've ruined my heroic sacrifice, you know that, right?" Duke accused her.  "I was going to make up for hundreds of years of Crockers being murderous dipshits and you've ruined that by making me alive again."

"Well, it's you, but, you know, you're still dead.  Your body's still there," Paige noted, motioning to the opened grave.  "I need help filling it in.  I'm too tired to do it on my own."

"Why is my grave open?" Duke demanded, even as he moved closer to read the epitaph.  "'Beloved Friend'?  Really?  Come on, I deserved better than that."

"I didn't want to put 'Criminal, Purveyor of Alcohol and Asshole' on your tombstone," Nathan told him, though his grin was still a mile wide.

"I had to get to your body to get the aether out.  Sorry," Paige added, snuggling into Nathan's side.

"You could've put 'Savior of Haven'," Duke complained, grimacing as he turned back to the pair.  "Aud-"  He made a noise of exasperation.  "Paige.  Why couldn't you have left me dead?  I was pretty okay with being dead.  What am I going to do now?  If you had to bring someone back, there were a million people more deserving."

"Probably, but it's your grave I desecrated, so I figured you get first crack at it." 

"I…"  Duke looked down at the casket.  "I don't know that I even want-"  He sighed, turning back to the couple.  "Nathan, you owe me drinks for the rest of my unnatural life for killing me," he finally seemed to come to grips with his new world.

"You asked me to kill you.  Begged me even," Nathan answered.  "Besides, you own a bar."

"No, Gloria owns a bar, apparently.  Who knows if she'll give it back," Duke grumbled.  But he did close the distance and wrap his arms around Paige.  "Thank you, for bringing me back.  I'm still, I don't know, a little sad about it, but you know, thank you."

"We've got a lot to catch you up on," Nathan began, still beaming, but before he could continue, another voice called out from the woods.

"Hello?"

Paige grinned, pulling out of Duke's embrace to wave to the figure by the treeline.  "Jennifer!  We're over here!"

She could practically hear two sets of jaws dropping again and glancing over with a smirk on her face.  "You're going to catch flies if you keep doing that," she teased them.

Duke took off without a reply, meeting Jennifer at the halfway point.  He gathered her up in his arms and spun her around and from where Paige stood, she could see the matching grins on their faces.

She leaned against Nathan again, pleased that it had worked out so well.

"Why did you…" Her husband-to-be trailed off before he could ask the whole question.

"There was a lot of aether," she repeated.  "I couldn't leave it around and I definitely didn't want to have it around to tempt me.  But if I brought back Duke, I knew I'd have to bring back Jennifer.  It wouldn't be right."

Nathan shook his head slightly, tearing his eyes away from Duke and Jennifer's joyful reunion.  "But you couldn't tell me about all this?  You couldn't tell me that you were afraid, or that you planned to do this?  You had to drug me and do this on your own?" he asked, voice low and hurt.

Paige looked up into his eyes.  "You would have said no, Nathan.  I know you.  You wouldn't have wanted me to touch aether.  And you certainly wouldn't have wanted me to do anything to shorten my life even though I'd have lived for hundreds of more years.  I couldn't do that.  I'm not strong enough to live that long, without you, without James, watching generations of our family come and go."  She shook her head.  "So I came here, the only place I could think of.  Because it was aether or...nothing.  It was the only solution to my problem."

"But you drugged me."  Nathan's gaze bored into her and she felt that same old steel rise up in herself.

"Okay, Mister I-Change-The-Baby's-Name-Without-Consulting-His-Mother, I don't think making sure you got a really good night's sleep once is something to complain about," she pronounced, punctuating every word with a poke to his chest.

"You have a baby?" Jennifer asked as she came up to them, hand-in-hand with Duke.  "Oh, I love your hair, Audrey, when did you get it done?"

"I, uh, take it all back," Duke told her, a bit sheepish.  "Thanks for bringing us back from the dead."

"Yeah, someone's going to have to explain that to me," Jennifer put in, eyes wide with skepticism but that same, familiar little smile on her face.

"Thanks," Paige replied, smoothing a hand over her hair, which she knew was a mess from the night's exertions.  "We'll explain it all over breakfast and probably lunch too.  You can call me Paige, by the way.  That's my name now," she explained.  "It's great to see you again," she added as she offered the other woman a hug.

When they finally began to move towards the cars, after deciding that they were just going to ask the gravediggers to fill in the grave again, Paige laughed as Duke immediately cracked wise about Nathan's vehicle.

"How is that truck still alive?  I can't believe I died before your stupid truck, Wuornos."

"Well, I love that truck.  You?  Not so much, Crocker," Nathan retorted with a grin.

With his arm around her shoulder, Paige beamed up at her almost-husband.  "Parker," she told him.

"What?" he asked bemusedly, smiling down at her.

"I want to name the next kid Parker.  Boy or girl."

"Parker," Nathan repeated with a smile.  "You know, I really like that name."

**Author's Note:**

> All critical comments welcome.


End file.
